Chapter 121 Mysterious Man
Bai Xiu took the hairpin from Chen Xiang'er and knocked on the copper lock a few more times.
After a while, footsteps were heard in the courtyard: "Who is it?"
Bai Xiu pinched her throat and said, "It's my slave."
The footsteps were getting closer and closer. The moment the door opened, Bai Xiu instinctively felt something was wrong. He quickly pushed away the black knife beside him, and three hidden arrows flew out from the gap in the door!
"careful!"
"Bang!" The door closed again from the inside, Heidao jumped into the yard. There was no one in the dark yard.
He took out a lighter from his bosom and lit it, then kicked open the door in the dim light. There was a strong smell of blood in the room. He found a bloody piece of clothing on the kang, with a knife cut on one of the arms.
The injured assassin should have been here before, but unfortunately the place is empty.
Bai Xiu carried Chen Xiang'er and waited outside for a long time but no one came out. She was a little worried and shouted, "Idiot, what's going on in there?!"
"Bang!" The door broke open from the inside, scaring Bai Xiu.
"This bastard, let him get away again!"
"Let's go back first."
Heidao took Chen Xiang'er from her, and the two ran towards Tianxiang Tower.
*
After an incense stick of time, the two rushed back to Tianxiang Tower, climbed over the wall and went directly back to the backyard. Song Yuzhu had been waiting in Chen Xianger's room for a long time.
Hei Dao put the man down and said, "Your Majesty, you are truly a master of prediction. This Chen Xiang'er is indeed connected to that assassin!"
"It's a pity that he ran away again." Bai Xiu said with some regret.
"It doesn't matter, just catch Chen Xiang'er." Song Yuzhu used the hairpin again to wake Chen Xiang'er up.
This time she didn't yell like before, but lowered her head and said nothing, showing that she was determined to give up.
Song Yuzhu asked, "Zhang Xiang, are you really planning to keep this a secret for others until you die?"
Chen Xiang'er's shoulders trembled slightly when her name was called out, but she calmed down after a while, as if nothing had happened.
"Even if you don't think about yourself, you should think about your brother. He was disabled and died in the palace for unknown reasons. Don't you want to seek justice for him?"
Tears dripped down Zhang Xiang's cheeks. She slowly raised her head and sneered, "Justice? When Zhongzhou revolted, my family lived on farming and did not participate at all. In the end, we were slaughtered by the general who suppressed the rebellion. Who asked for justice for us? My brother took me to Beijing to seek refuge with my aunt, and she drugged me and sold me to a brothel. Who can I ask for justice? Now that my brother is dead, what use is there for me to ask for justice?"
Song Yuzhu said, "The suppression of the rebellion in Zhongzhou was a matter of the previous dynasty. You can't expect it to happen today. Your aunt sold you into a brothel. Your brother can report it to the authorities."
"How do you know he didn't report it to the authorities? Shuntian Prefecture almost beat my brother to death. If he hadn't saved us..."
"who is he?"
Zhang Xiang realized that she had let the cat out of the bag, so she stopped talking and lowered her head back to her normal state.
Seeing that he couldn't get any answers, Heidao spat and said, "Your Majesty, leave this little bitch to me. I'll teach her a lesson and she'll confess!"
Song Yuzhu waved his hands. He didn't believe that he couldn't get the truth out of Zhang Xiang: "Do you know how I found out that you were lying?"
Zhang Xiang closed her eyes, looking as if it had nothing to do with her.
Song Yuzhu: "The woman in green at the door must have colluded with you in advance. If someone comes to look for you, she will notify you in advance."
Heidao and Baixiu were puzzled: "Sir, how do you know that they are in collusion?"
Song Yuzhu said, "When we walked into Tianxiang Tower, the pipa music played in the building was "Golden Branches and Jade Leaves". When you mentioned that you wanted to find Chen Xiang'er, the woman in green waved her hand and the music changed to "Nian Nu Jiao."
Song Yuzhu didn't know much about quyi, but she had heard both of these pieces before, so she was a little curious as to why the next piece was played before the first one was finished.
"Is there anything strange about this?" Heidao scratched his head.
"That song should be reminding her that someone is coming."
Song Yuzhu continued, "We walked to your door, and you deliberately said those words, then pulled off the silk and satin on your body, wrapped it around your neck, and grabbed the man's hand and tore it hard."
This time, Zhang Xiang looked at him in surprise, not understanding how he guessed it.
Song Yuzhu pointed at the purple bruises on her neck and said, "The scars are not right. If someone else had used force, the scar on your neck should be deeper in the front and shallower in the back. You used force yourself and the scar is deeper in the back and shallower in the front. If you don't believe me, you can try again."
The situation was urgent at the time. The man was so frightened that he had no time to explain himself and was controlled and gagged by Heidao Baixiu. He was really unlucky.
Heidao understood what he heard and said with wide eyes: "Master, you are really as good as a god!"
Bai Xiu: "If you don't want everyone in Tianxiang Tower to be implicated by you, then tell us everything you know."
Zhang Xiang said, "The people of Tianxiang Tower have nothing to do with me. You can kill or chop them up as you wish."
Song Yuzhu winked at Bai Xiu, and Bai Xiu walked out. Soon the voice of the woman in green was heard from the door.
"You said Xiang'er wanted to see me?"
Zhang Xiang suddenly shouted from inside the house: "Sister Luwu, run!"
The door opened, and Bai Xiu walked in carrying the unconscious Lv Wu. "You can't run away. If you don't tell the truth, your good sister will do the same as that man just now, cutting off your nose and digging out your eyes."
Zhang Xiang stood up angrily: "It's none of her business, come to me if you want to kill me!"
Heidao was afraid that she would hurt Song Yuzhu who was next to her, so he pushed her back onto the bed with a punch.
"Ahem...Please, please don't hurt her. She is really innocent."
Song Yuzhu shouted, "Isn't your brother innocent? He died in the palace and there was no one to collect his body. He was wrapped in a half-cut straw mat and thrown on a mass grave, to be eaten by wild dogs and wolves. Don't you dream of him grabbing your legs and crying in pain at night?"
"Stop talking, please stop talking!" Zhang Xiang covered her ears, on the verge of a mental breakdown.
"Then tell me everything you know!"
She bit her lower lip tightly, and when Bai Xiu was about to cut her, she finally gave up resisting: "I'll tell you! I'll tell you..."
"It all started with the suppression of the rebellion in Zhongzhou that year."
Zhang Yi had started an uprising in Zhongzhou, but it turned out to be a makeshift group that brought misery to the local people. In particular, in Zhang Yi's hometown village, all those who were related to him were captured by Shen Congwu and beheaded as a warning to the public.
All of Zhang Xiang's relatives died in the catastrophe. She and her brother luckily escaped by herding cattle in the mountains.
The brother and sister hid in the mountains for half a year, eating tree bark and wild vegetables when hungry and drinking river water when thirsty. When they came down the mountain, they learned that the Sheng Dynasty had been destroyed and a new emperor had ascended the throne to change the dynasty.
Zhang Qiu remembered hearing from her mother that she had a younger sister who married in Shangjing, so she packed her bags and took her sister to Shangjing to beg for shelter with her aunt. She didn't expect that this would be the beginning of their nightmare.
After the two arrived in Shangjing, they asked along the streets and finally found their aunt's home.
When the aunt learned that her sister had died tragically, she hugged them and cried bitterly. She touched their faces and said, "Good children, you have suffered so much along the way. Coming to my house is like your own home. I will support you in the future."
At that time, Zhang Qiu and Zhang Xiang really thought they had someone to rely on, but they never expected that three days later, Zhang Xiang woke up to find herself locked in a woodshed, and the voices of her aunt and the madam could be heard outside the door.
"This girl has the looks and the figure. She can be taken out to serve customers. Fifteen taels cannot be less."
"That's too expensive. It's not made of gold or silver, so how can it be worth fifteen taels?"
Zhang Xiang was so frightened that she was shaking all over and kept knocking on the door of the woodshed: "Auntie, Auntie! What are you doing? Let me out!"
"Forget it, forget it. Ten taels is ten taels. If this little slut didn't have bad intentions at home, I wouldn't sell it to you so cheaply." Aunt Fang took the money from the madam and left.
Zhang Xiang didn't understand how she had offended her aunt, who actually let her sell her to such a filthy place. She thought about committing suicide, but she gritted her teeth and endured it because she was thinking about her brother.
Half a year later, she finally met her brother while entertaining a client. At this time, Zhang Qiu was already skinny and bony. The brother and sister's eyes were red when they met.
Zhang Xiang pretended not to know her brother, pulled his arm and led him into the room. After entering the room, she finally couldn't help but burst into tears.
Zhang Xiang hit his brother on the back and said, "Brother, where have you been? Why don't you come and save me?"
Zhang Qiu hugged his sister tightly and cried so hard that he wished he could bite his teeth off.
The two finally calmed down, and Zhang Qiu told his sister about his experience: "That day, she not only knocked you unconscious, but when I woke up, I found myself lying on a flatbed truck, with my hands and feet tied and taken to the mine in Jizhou."
There were six or seven half-grown children like him on the bus. In order to control them, these people only gave them one steamed bun and a bowl of water every day.
After arriving at the mine, they lived an even more inhuman life. They were chained and worked from morning to night, with only three hours of rest a day. If they dared to be lazy, the supervisor would whip them, leaving them with torn skin and flesh.
Because Zhang Qiu was good at speaking, he often helped the supervisor to rub his back during breaks to please him. Soon, his chains were removed and he became a handyman who ran errands. He also took this opportunity to escape from the mine, and it took him nearly four months to return to Shangjing.
The first thing he did after returning to Beijing was to find Aunt Fang. He hid near Aunt Fang's house for four or five days and finally found an opportunity.
When Aunt Fang went out on the street alone, Zhang Qiu followed her to a remote place, strangled her neck with a rope, and forced her to tell him the whereabouts of her sister.
At first, Aunt Fang refused to admit that she had sold the two people. But when she saw that Zhang Qiu was determined to kill her, she begged for mercy and told him the whereabouts of Zhang Xiang and the reason why she sold them.
Aunt Fang's husband was a businessman who had been doing business in other places. When they came here for shelter, her uncle happened to come back from other places and ran into Zhang Xiang by chance.
At that time, Zhang Xiang, who was 12 years old, had grown up to be a very beautiful girl. This dirty old man fell in love with her at first sight and even wanted to take his niece as a concubine. When Aunt Fang found out, she was furious. She thought that Zhang Xiang had seduced her husband and decided to sell the brother and sister immediately.
When Zhang Qiu learned that her sister was sold to that kind of place, he was so angry that he almost killed her. However, in the end he asked her for money to redeem his sister and let her go.
Zhang Xiang understood the danger just by listening to her brother's words. She held her brother's hand tightly and said, "Fortunately, we are all alive."
Zhang Qiu reached out and wiped off the powder on his sister's face and said, "Brother will redeem you. Let's leave here and go back home."
"Um!"
The two walked out of the house happily. Zhang Qiu called the madam, took out the fifty taels of silver for redemption and wanted to take his sister away.
Unexpectedly, the madam refused to release her. Zhang Qiu took out the contract and said, "Didn't you write that the ransom is fifty taels of silver? Why don't you release her?"
The madam sent a pimp to snatch the indenture contract and tore it into pieces: "You little bastard, your sister is now our top prostitute. She earns more than fifty taels of silver a day from receiving customers. Do you still want to take her away? Don't dream. Don't even think about taking her away without five thousand taels of silver!" After that, she ordered Zhang Qiu to be kicked out.
Zhang Xiang cried her heart out, and Zhang Qiu was filled with hatred.
The next day, Zhang Qiu beat the drum of Shuntian Prefecture and accused Aunt Fang of selling his sister privately and the brothel owner of tearing up the contract and refusing to release her.
He originally thought that the official would be able to help him get justice, but he didn't expect that Aunt Fang and the brothel's madam colluded with each other and said that Zhang Qiu had falsely accused the two of them. They also changed the price of the indenture, changing the original fifty taels of silver to five thousand taels.
The governor of Shuntian prefecture did not investigate the matter and simply dragged Zhang Qiu out and gave him fifty lashes.
At that time, Zhang Qiu had just escaped from Jizhou not long ago. He was seven feet tall and thin, weighing less than 60 kilograms. These fifty beatings would have meant his death.
Just when Zhang Qiu thought he was doomed, he met a man who was wearing gorgeous clothes but only a wooden hairpin on his head. He pleaded with the governor of Shuntian Prefecture and saved Zhang Qiu.
After learning about Zhang Qiu and his sister's experience, the man sympathized with her and said, "Although I don't have the money to redeem your sister, I can talk to the brothel owner and let your sister be a singer, so that she doesn't have to serve others with her beauty."
Zhang Qiu knelt down and kowtowed, "Please help me, sir. As long as you can save my sister, my life will belong to you!"
The man helped Zhang Qiu up and said, "I don't want your life. If you want to redeem your sister, I will show you a way. Do you see the imperial city? As long as you make a name for yourself in there, your sister will be able to get out of there..."
(End of this chapter)
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